Wikipedia:WikiProject United States

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Welcome to the Wikipedia project for articles regarding the United States of America.

[edit] Mission

WikiProject United States was formed to unify and coordinate all things USA on Wikipedia and help to maintain The USA Portal. Some project goals are to help list and categorize USA related articles, develop quality standards for articles and build templates that help users browse the dozens of articles that would fall under the this project's watch. This project will also provide a place for U.S. Wikipedians and other editors to share information and resources. Here editors can ask for help with certain articles and bring otherwise overseen articles and problems to the attention of other editors.

[edit] Related WikiProjects

WikiProject United States is one of the United States WikiProjects.

National	United States \| US regions \| US states \| History
State	Alabama \| Alaska \| Arizona \| Arkansas \| California \| Colorado \| Connecticut \| Delaware \| Florida \| Georgia \| Hawaii \| Idaho \| Illinois \| Indiana \| Iowa \| Kansas \| Kentucky \| Louisiana \| Maine \| Maryland \| Massachusetts \| Michigan \| Minnesota \| Mississippi \| Missouri \| Montana \| Nebraska \| Nevada \| New Hampshire \| New Jersey \| New Mexico \| New York \| North Carolina \| North Dakota \| Ohio \| Oklahoma \| Oregon \| Pennsylvania \| Rhode Island \| South Carolina \| South Dakota \| Tennessee \| Texas \| Utah \| Vermont \| Virginia \| Washington \| West Virginia \| Wisconsin \| Wyoming List of US State-level WikiProjects and their sub-projects
Territorial	District of Columbia \| American Samoa \| Puerto Rico \| Caribbean (US Virgin Is. + non-US is.) \| Micronesia (Guam, etc. + non-US is.)
Regional	US State capitols \| US cities \| US counties \| US special districts
Government	US Presidents \| US Congress \| US Government agencies \| US Governors \| US politicians \| US Armed Forces
Assets	US Interstate Highways \| US Highways \| US Roads \| Historic Places

Also related, and often overlapping heavily with US topics, are WikiProject Canada and WikiProject Mexico.

[edit] To do

[edit] Expand

Project page

[edit] Create/article requests

Article requests should be placed at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Other categorization schemes#United States

Templates for this project
A lot of the presidential election articles
Environmental issues in the United States - currently a redirect to Environment of the United States. See Environment of Australia and Environmental issues in Australia for a guideline. These articles are currently skeletons at present bt they give the feel of how the two are different.
Conservation in the United States
Irrigation in the United States - see Category:Irrigation in the United States and Irrigation in Mexico for inspiration.

[edit] Recruit

Wikipedians in the United States

See the U. S. Matrix

[edit] Articles in need of attention

Allegations of state terrorism by United States of America - peer review requested due to disputes between editors
Standard of living in the United States (POV conflict)
Health care in the United States (no refs, possible OR)
Human rights in the United States (POV conflict)
Poverty in the United States (failed GA, only two editors maintain the article)
Social issues in the United States (POV conflict)
Social structure of the United States (OR-three unreferenced sections remain)
General Motors (POV conflict, many editors complain of PR fluff)
United States technological and industrial history (Article has been abandoned as a stub despite being linked on "UShistoryFooter", beginning drive to improve)
Plymouth Colony This article is up for featured article nomination, but is in need of some extra copyediting. Most of the work on it was done by a single editor, and several reviewers have asked that some additional work be done, in order to increase the eyes on the article, and to copyedit it.
Americana - unreferenced and full of original research, esp. the list of Americana bands and musicians. Needs help.

[edit] Sections in need of attention

Intro to United States (see Talk:United States#Changes, Talk:United States#Superpower or not.3F The point is that the world is changing and it's subsections)

[edit] Articles lacking references

[edit] Deletions

Deletion discussions will be held at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/United States of America

[edit] Special projects

Sometimes Wikipedians and WikiProjects combine their efforts to improve whole sets of related articles, using portals, info boxes, navigational aids and uniform templates for a specific topic area. Many of these are coordinated through WikiProject U.S. states. Please join the effort!

Categories By state: AL | AK | AZ | AR | CA | CO | CT | DE | FL | GA | HI | ID | IL | IN | IA | KS | KY | LA | ME | MD | MA | MI | MN | MS | MO | MT | NE | NV | NH | NJ | NM | NY | NC | ND | OH | OK | OR | PA | RI | SC | SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WV | WI | WY

Another related special project is the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which covers Native American nations as well as First Nations in Canada.

[edit] Timeline of United States history

The order which the original 13 states ratified the constitution, then the order that the others were admitted to the union

The List of U.S. states by date of statehood is a featured list. Check to see if Wikipedia has a "History of [My State]" article and a "Timeline of [My State] history". Examples:

See the Timeline of United States history

[edit] 50 State Quarters and Infoboxes

State quarter

Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and some other states feature their commemorative state quarter on their main article. This special project is to discuss and decide on a uniform placement of each state's quarter and other ways to make {{Infobox U.S. state}} infoboxes a bit more complete and attractive

[edit] American Civil War

A state by state treatment of Civil War articles by state is being conducted by WikiProject Military history through the American Civil War task force. Check to see if your state has a "[My State] in the American Civil War" category and article. Some Examples:

If your state has National Battlefields or was host to significant events related to the American Civil War, Make sure it has a detailed accurate well-sourced article that covers those places and events in a comprehensive way.

Coordinate with WikiProject Biography to make sure that Key figures from your state are covered fairly and completely.

[edit] Tables of contents and indexes

The following pages serve as tables of contents or indexes to United States-related content on Wikipedia. They need to be developed, and maintained:

List of basic United States topics - for its placement, see Lists of basic topics
List of United States-related topics - (for a similar index page, see List of Germany-related topics)

[edit] Quality content

[edit] Featured articles

Manzanar

Minnesota

Oklahoma

United States Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

United States Marine Corps

2005 United States Grand Prix

[edit] "A-Class" articles

Gun violence in the United States

[edit] Good articles

[edit] FA/GA Nominees

The following articles are currently being considered for either FA or GA article status.

[edit] Featured article nominees

United States

Failed nominations

[edit] Good article nominees

Stephen Colbert (character)

[edit] Former GA/FA articles

Please help restore these articles to their fomer status:

[edit] Did you knows (DYKs)

List of freshman class members of the 110th United States Congress - 16 January 2007

[edit] Quality Scale

See the Assessment department for more information!

**Article progress grading scheme** **[ v • d • e ]**
Label	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editor's experience	Example
FA {{FA-Class}}	Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status, and meet the current criteria for featured articles.	Definitive. Outstanding, thorough article; a great source for encyclopedic information.	No further additions are necessary unless new published information has come to light, but further improvements to the text are often possible.	United States Constitution
FL {{FL-Class}}	Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured lists" status, and meet the current criteria for featured lists.	Definitive. Outstanding, thorough list; a great source for encyclopedic information.	No further additions are necessary unless new published information has come to light, but further improvements to the text are often possible.	FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives (as of January 2008)
A {{A-Class}}	Provides a well-written, reasonably clear and complete description of the topic, as described in How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, with a well-written introduction and an appropriate series of headings to break up the content. It should have sufficient external literature references, preferably from reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (peer-reviewed where appropriate). Should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. At the stage where it could at least be considered for featured article status, corresponds to the "Wikipedia 1.0" standard.	Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. May miss a few relevant points.	Minor edits and adjustments would improve the article, particularly if brought to bear by a subject-matter expert. In particular, issues of breadth, completeness, and balance may need work. Peer-review would be helpful at this stage.	United States
GA {{GA-Class}}	The article has passed through the Good article nomination process and been granted GA status, meeting the good article standards. This should be used for articles that still need some work to reach featured article standards, but that are otherwise acceptable. Good articles that may succeed in FAC should be considered A-Class articles, but having completed the Good article designation process is not a requirement for A-Class.	Useful to nearly all readers. A good treatment of the subject. No obvious problems, gaps, or excessive information. Adequate for most purposes, but other encyclopedias could do a better job.	Some editing will clearly be helpful, but not necessary for a good reader experience. If the article is not already fully wikified, now is the time.	Battle of Gettysburg
B {{B-Class}}	Commonly the highest article grade that is assigned outside a more formal review process. Has several of the elements described in "start", usually a majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article. Nonetheless, it has some gaps or missing elements or references, needs editing for language usage or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) or No Original Research (NOR). With NPOV a well written B-class may correspond to the "Wikipedia 0.5" or "usable" standard. Articles that are close to GA status but don't meet the Good article criteria should be B- or Start-class articles.	Useful to many, but not all, readers. A casual reader flipping through articles would feel that they generally understood the topic, but a serious student or researcher trying to use the material would have trouble doing so, or would risk error in derivative work.	Considerable editing is still needed, including filling in some important gaps or correcting significant policy errors. Articles for which cleanup is needed will typically have this designation to start with.	Nevada
Start {{Start-Class}}	The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element. For example an article on Africa might cover the geography well, but be weak on history and culture. Has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following: a particularly useful picture or graphic multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic a subheading that fully treats an element of the topic multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article	Useful to some, provides a moderate amount of information, but many readers will need to find additional sources of information. The article clearly needs to be expanded.	Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added. This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage.	Gibbons v. Ogden
Stub {{Stub-Class}}	The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to bring it to A-Class level. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible.	Possibly useful to someone who has no idea what the term meant. May be useless to a reader only passingly familiar with the term. At best a brief, informed dictionary definition.	Any editing or additional material can be helpful.	Committee of the States
List {{List-Class}}	Meets the criteria of a Stand-alone List, which is a page that contains primarily a list.	There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader.	Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized.	List of areas disputed by Canada and the United States

[edit] Templates

These are the project-related templates.

[edit] Talk page banner

[edit] Use in articles

{{United States topics}} (navigation box; very large, covers everything; don't over-use)
{{United States}} (navigation box; political divisions; for use on state & territory articles)
{{Life in the United States}} (navigation box; does not include history or geography; more limited than the demographics one)
{{Demographics of the United States}} (navigation box; fairly comprehensive on the topic)
{{usculture}} (small sidebar; just the major topics)
{{US state}} (infobox for states and territories)

[edit] American WikiProjects' "Related projects" sections

[edit] Userbox

Template:User WikiProject United States

[edit] Barnstar

		The WikiProject United States Barnstar of National Merit
		{{{xX-message goes here-Xx}}}

This is a Barnstar i have created especially for the project. Taifar ious1 06:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collaborations

U.S. Collaboration of the Week

These two weeks, United States is the US Collaboration of the Week. (Shortcut: WP:USCOTW +/-)

Help select the next USCOTW now! Nominate an article you think needs improvement or vote for one of the candidates here.

The current Congressional Collaborations of the Week are:
Person	Beryl Anthony, Jr.
Place	Alabama's 8th congressional district
Thing	List of United States Representatives from California
Every week three U.S. Congress-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTW is organized by WikiProject U.S. Congress. (Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.)